


Midnight Oil

by ShevatheGun



Category: Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons), Superman - All Media Types, Superman: The Animated Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Established Relationship, F/F, Female!Clark Kent - Freeform, Female!Lex Luthor, Femlex, Fluff, Genderbending, Racebending, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 17:56:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4147332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShevatheGun/pseuds/ShevatheGun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara Kent just wants to sleep with her girlfriend. Like...ACTUALLY sleep. In a bed. For approximately eight hours. Her girlfriend is too busy inventing to oblige.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midnight Oil

**Author's Note:**

> I can still write drabbles, it turns out. Based in a college-AU where Clara and Lex are long-distance girlfriends.

Clara falls asleep in Lex’s bed by accident with her jeans on. She wakes up with Lex’s fingers in her beltloops, tugging the denim off her hips.

She glances over at the alarm clock on the side table; it’s a quarter past eleven, and Lex is still in her coat and scarf, snow dusting her lapels like a thin layer of flour, sparkling on her black skin like diamonds. Her bookbag is doing the splitz next to her desk chair.

“Did you just get back?” Clara asks, pointlessly, voice muddy with sleep.

Lex kisses her jaw and gets her jeans off to her knees. “My internship went late,” she says. “Don’t sleep in these; it’s terrible for your circulation.”

“You only say that because you sleep naked.”

“Rain or shine,” Lex murmurs, pulling back to tug them off Clara’s ankles. “Snow or sleet.” And then she’s shrugging off her coat and climbing back into bed.

“At least take your shoes off,” Clara gripes, as Lex slips her hands underneath her shirt. They’re cold, but Clara doesn’t really mind.

“I’ll change in a second,” Lex says, nipping her chin. “Do me a favor.”

Clara hitches her leg over Lex’s hip and feels Lex grin against her jaw. “Some people drink coffee,” she says.

“I had coffee on my way here,” Lex croons, kneading Clara’s chest. “I’ve got at least three hours of homework ahead of me. Can you spare a cup of endorphins?”

Clara finds she can.

Thirty minutes later, Lex stumbles off the bed, breathless and laughing, legs shaking. She hitches her underwear over her hips and puts her bra back on, and reaches over to tug the comforter back over Clara, tucking her in. She leans over to kiss her forehead, and Clara whines, wanting her to stay.

“Don’t stay up too late,” Clara murmurs.

Lex smiles and runs her hand through Clara’s hair; the sex has re-energized her curls, fluffing them up and tangling them in acrobatic knots.

“Go to sleep,” Lex says, kissing her again.

Clara dozes off watching her in her chair, curled over her desk with a strange eagerness, twirling her pencil in a figure-8 between her fingers.

* * *

Clara wakes up again at 4am and finds the light still on. Lex has put on a sweater to combat the Massachusetts cold, and instead of a pencil, she's holding one of the smallest screwdrivers Clara's ever seen. There are papers scattering her desk like autumn leaves, but none of them look school-related. She's crouched over something Clara can't make out, but it sounds like metal when it rocks against the woodgrain.

Clara reaches out, hand groping for Lex's shoulder. She squints into the light, head aching. "'zat still homew'rk?"

Lex jumps a little but doesn't turn to look at her. She speaks low, like 4am demands a certain level of quiet regardless of present company. "In a sense."

"Get in bed," Clara whines.

Lex sets her screwdriver down and catches Clara's hand. She kisses the back of her wrist, slowly. Her lips feel cool to the touch.

"I'll be there in a few minutes," she says, and Clara grunts and turns her face into the pillow.

"A few minutes," she says, groggily. Lex doesn't say anything before she's drifting off again again, and in her last seconds of consciousness she's equal parts exhausted and annoyed by that.

* * *

The alarm goes off at 8:30, and Lex hits the snooze button from the desk before Clara's even gotten her eyes open. The room is flooded in garish sunlight, and Clara squints against it. Lex is turning something over in her hands, her expression strangely serene.

"Lex," Clara says.

Lex blinks and glances over at her, seeming to come back into herself. "Good morning," she says, smiling slow.

"Were you up all night?"  Twelve hours of restless and frequently interrupted sleep has Clara cranky; the sunlight seems like an unwelcome houseguest.

Lex blinks, as if this fact hasn't occurred to her yet. She glances at the clock like time has only just been invented. "...oh. Yes." She looks back at Clara with a 'what can you do?' kind of expression, and stands up. "I have class in an hour."

Clara has the urge to pull Lex into bed bodily. She can't even really think of any reason why she shouldn't. She glares at the object in Lex's hands before realizing it isn't something she recognizes - it looks like some kind of chrome wristwatch.

"What's that?" she asks, nodding towards it.

Lex glances down - it really is like she's blinking in and out of existence. Every time Clara points her attention at something, it's like she's noticing it for the first time. She comes over and sits on the bed, holding it out for Clara to see; Clara recognizes what could be an iPod Nano sitting in the band of metal, but from where she's sitting she can't understand what it's supposed to be.

Lex runs her fingertip over the surface and it comes to life, and suddenly Clara finds herself staring into what feels like a cellphone display. It takes up the entire scope of her vision. She blinks and shakes her head, trying to clear it, and it goes transparent. Lex is looking down at her intently.

"It's a wristbound computer with a retina display," she says, like she's measuring Clara's reaction.

"Uh, how do I make it--"

"Look down and to the left."

Sure enough, Clara finds a small "x" at the left edge of her vision - it stays stationary as she finds it. "How do I-- Oh." She blinks and the application powers down. Lex touches the screen again, swiping right, and the display appears as a holographic rectangle an inch or two above the band.

"You made that?" Clara asks, feeling like she's just witnessed something straight out of the New Testament.

Lex shrugs, like making a wristbound computer in your dorm room is something even a particularly ambitious sea cucumber could accomplish. "It's a prototype," she says. "Obviously. The retina display is still a little invasive, but it's something."

"Lex, that's incredible. That's amazing."

Lex looks up, and the shock on her face - the honest surprise - fractures Clara's heart. It's only there for a second, but Clara feels the unpleasant jolt even as the self-important smugness hurries in to replace it on Lex’s face. Lex smiles in an immensely self-satisfied kind of way, and Clara grabs her hands before she can speak.

"Lex, listen to me, that is unbelievable. That is..." Clara looks at the wristbound again and shakes her head. "I feel like you just let me borrow a bootleg of the future."

Lex's smirk blossoms into a grin. "Flattery will get you nowhere," she says, obviously lying, and don’t people ever tell her how smart she is? How amazing? It’s not fair, Clara thinks, people should be telling Lex how amazing she is all the time.

"Skip class today," Clara says, suddenly. "Skip class. Stay here. We can..." She shakes her head, trying to think. "You can get some sleep, and then we can go get lunch and you can show me every single thing that thing can do." No other people, she thinks. Just her. Just her and Lex wound up in knots around one another.

Lex grins a little wider, biting the edge of her lower lip like she's going to argue. "It's Tuesday, I've got four classes back-to-back."

"Please?" Clara says, and something sparks just behind Lex's eyes, something enormous and powerful; something Clara wants very, very much.

Lex runs one hand back through Clara's hair, and Clara leans into her touch, sighing. "When do you have to be to the airport?" she asks.

"I don't know," Clara says, and the lie tastes bitter in her mouth. She doesn’t want to fly anywhere, and she doesn’t want to lie to her beautiful, genius girlfriend anymore. She muscles through it. "I think during your internship sometime."

Maybe she’ll tell her next time. Maybe she’ll tell her this time, if she can just get some real sleep first.

Lex hums thoughtfully, and Clara takes a chance, shrugging off the comforter to wrap her arms about Lex's hips. She props her chin on Lex's brown stomach. She murmurs, soft, like there's anyone else who could be listening:

"Sleep with me, genius."

Lex slides the wristbound off and goes down easy, curling around Clara like the rings of Saturn. She wraps her arms around Clara's neck, and Clara slides her hands up the back of her sweater, humming contentedly.

"I'm in love with your brain," Clara whispers.

"It is pretty impressive," Lex murmurs, and then she's asleep, and Clara is in love with everything else about her too, all at once.

 


End file.
